


The Care and Feeding Of

by fasterassembly (signalbeam)



Category: Teen Titans (Animated Series)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, The fine art of cultivating plants, They're alien plants that's what makes it hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-24
Updated: 2010-09-24
Packaged: 2017-10-30 01:27:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/326234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/signalbeam/pseuds/fasterassembly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raven has a plant. Starfire insists on helping. There's a confetti cannon in the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Care and Feeding Of

A priest once told her that cultivating plant life could be very satisfying. Raven doesn't see how. She doesn’t like to fail, and plants (like cats, dogs, Beast Boy, small children, and most things that need taking care of) irritate her on principle. She suspects that she might snap and chuck the plant out the Tower and break a window or two with it—the problem with that course of action being, of course, that the Tower is mostly glass, and she wants to drive the car again, but Cyborg’ll be fussy and hard to deal with if he thinks she has a fondness for breaking glass. 

The priest must have told her about cultivating plants to mock her. The priests of Azarath mostly are fond of her, but while she’s never hated them, she's never been at ease with them. They taught her useful things and after making sure she wouldn’t explode, went about their own business again. It was hard growing up as a child in Azarath. The priests there don’t seem to remember what it’s like to be young, and never had the patience to deal with her emotional needs, and her mother was too busy being a martyr to say anything more than, “It will be as it is, Raven.” 

Her mother should have become a Buddhist nun. At least their version of Zen had some grounding in logic. 

She bought the little plant on impulse. It's small. Cute, one might say. Supposedly it flowers once a year. Once she's bought it, she looks down at it irritably. Plants need light. Plants need water. Plants, if Starfire is any indication, needs talking to in order for them to remain healthy. She can provide the water, but everything else? 

Well, it is just as the priest thought. She doesn’t know what to do with this, and she’ll most likely kill it before the week is out. She goes to Starfire’s room and knocks on the door. The door flings open before her knuckles land on the door for a second time.

“Oh, Raven!” Starfire says. “I am so pleased to see you!”

“Likewise,” Raven says, grimacing into Starfire’s hug, but otherwise not doing much of anything. “Here,” she says. She hands the plant over. 

“Is this perhaps the rare and elusive Trogash Poisonous Walking Plant?”

“No,” Raven says. 

“Oh,” Starfire says. “Then…”

“I’m giving it to you,” she says. “I heard that you have a talent for keeping these kinds of things.”

“That’s true,” Starfire says. “My _korfli_ is nearly eight feet tall. But is this perhaps a gift given to you by some grateful citizen?”

“No.” 

Obviously not. Robin gets gifts and gives awkwardly phrased autographs. Cyborg gets gifts and the occasional pet robot. Starfire gets gifts. Beast Boy gets balloons. Raven gets long, painful silences when she walks into a room. Or a mall. Or public spaces in general. 

“Then this is something that you bought yourself? I cannot accept it. Why, it may injure his psyche if you were to give him up before he can be properly weaned—”

“Starfire,” Raven says, “it’s a _plant_. It doesn’t have a psyche. It doesn’t even have a brain.”

“Surely your meditative practices have taught you that everything has meaning?”

“No, it’s taught me how to keep my mind free from the chains of emotion.” There doesn’t seem to be much of a point trying to explain this to Starfire. Raven suspects that Starfire has a severe case of selective hearing. “On Earth,” Raven tries, “most plants have… no brains.” 

“But you do not need a brain in order to have a soul,” Starfire says. 

“Ah,” Raven says, coming to a rather sudden understanding of the stars, the cosmos, and the inner workings of an alien’s brain. Of course. It all makes sense now. “I see. However, I believe that I do not have… the capabilities to properly nurture this young… life.”

“Oh, Raven,” Starfire says. “If that is how you truly feel, there is but one solution.”

“Yes,” Raven says. “Now if you will excuse me—”

“We must raise the plant together! It will be a glorious bondage experience—”

_Bondage_?

“Wait,” Raven says. “Starfire—”

 

\---

 

There’s a botanical garden hidden away on one of the lesser-used floors of the Tower.

It’s “lesser-used” because it’s overgrown and infested with various sorts of plant-life, and not all of them are entirely hospitable to human (or Tamaranian) presence. Starfire has to blast some of them with a bolt or two, and Raven finds that showing her anger once is enough to deter most of the worst offenders. Most of them. 

“Welcome,” Starfire says, “to my collection of common alien plant life.”

“…” Raven says. Indeed, she does sense a bit of emotion from one of the more suggestive, woody plants. She’s not entirely sure if she wants to explore its emotional range, but it certainly is something to make note of so she can petition Starfire for its immediate removal. 

“Hmm,” Starfire says, squinting at the little plant. “I believe this plant will do well in eighty percent of your Earthling sunlight and receives approximately thirty milliliters of water every two days for the next month. Do you believe that will be adequate?”

“Yes,” Raven says. She’s not going to admit that she doesn’t have a clue how to do this in front of Starfire.

“Most excellent,” Starfire says. “Do not worry. I have heard that you are very good at rearing mechanical children. This should not be much different, no?”

Raven forcibly relocates a vine creeping up her leg (she knew she have bought pants or a long dress to use as her costume, but they’re surprisingly difficult to come by in Jump City) and says, “If you’re talking about the car—”

“Yes! I have been informed that the T-Car is Cyborg’s ‘baby,’ but given your undeniable hand in its maturation—”

“I’m leaving.”

“But Raven! We’ve yet to solidify our—”

“ _I’m leaving._ ”

 

\---

 

Of course she’s back in the botanical garden two days later with a glass of water. Starfire trails behind Raven, carrying fertilizer, a confetti cannon, and possibly a screwdriver. 

The plant looks exactly the same as it did a few days ago. Raven pours the water onto the plant. Nothing happens. She is not impressed. 

“So that’s it?” Raven says.

“Yes,” Starfire says. “That is it.” 

Starfire fires off the confetti cannon. Bits of paper and plastic come raining down.

“You might not understand it now,” Starfire says, “but when spring comes, you will see the value of rearing this plant.” 

“I doubt it,” Raven says. She picks confetti off her hair. When spring comes. Until then, she should just take care of the plant as always, even if she doesn’t understand. It sounds familiar. It sounds like something one of the priests might say. 

She looks behind her, where Starfire is fertilizing a woody vine and cooing over a particularly pungent plant. She'll have to do something nice for Starfire later. A second confetti cannon will do.


End file.
